


Coming Clean

by Blink_Blue



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Established Relationship, Fights, Guilt, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blink_Blue/pseuds/Blink_Blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stanford scenario B: Oliver tells Connor the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Clean

It’s now or never. Well, really it’s got to be now because if he chickens out again, he knows he’ll never go through with it. He’ll never come clean. And _god knows_ he wants to _._  The weight of it drags him down, heavy on his shoulders. Sometimes it feels like an ache deep in his chest, even though he knows physically, he’s fine. And sometimes he’ll look at Connor when the other man doesn’t know he’s watching, and he’ll remember exactly what he did. 

Like right now.

The guilt gnaws at him, keeps him distant, and terrifies him. The truth is, they can’t keep going like this, and Oliver can’t keep pretending everything is okay. He can’t keep pretending he didn’t betray the man he loves. The truth always comes out. Either by his own hand, or someone else’s, the truth will come out. And it will turn out so much worse if Connor found out on his own.

So Oliver takes a deep breath, braces himself, and approaches the other man on the couch.

“Hey, uh… can we talk?”

Connor looks up from his laptop where it sits on the coffee table, surrounded by various notes and papers that take up nearly the entire surface. It seems even when classes are over, Annalise still has her interns working hard for her.

“Yeah, sure. What’s going on?” Connor closes the open books he had on the couch next to him to make room for Oliver to sit. The books end up an untidy stack on top of his mess on the table.

Oliver hesitantly takes a seat next to the other man. He’s nervously fidgeting with his hands before he realizes what he’s doing and stops. “Um… I–I have to tell you something.”

“Okay,” Connor says softly as he sits up a bit and shifts towards the other man. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“Yeah, um… you’re not. I–I know you’re going to be mad at me. But I have to tell you. And just–just ah–try to keep an open mind, I guess?”

“Alright what’s going on?” Connor murmurs softly. “You’re freaking me out.”

“Okay. Okay.” Oliver takes a shaky breath before he begins. “I–I did something. Something bad. And I feel horrible about it. And I’m really sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me–”

“Oliver, just say it.”

“You got accepted into Stanford.”

There’s a moment of silence between them as Connor digests what he said. His confusion is clear in his eyes. He blinks. At first, he thinks maybe he misheard, or simply misunderstood. But the confusion soon turns into a hard glare.

“What?”

“You–you got in,” Oliver says softly. “You got into Stanford.”

“What are you talking about–how do you–”

“Your email acceptance came about four weeks ago. And… your paper acceptance arrived a week later.” Oliver has to struggle around the lump in his throat to get the words out. And seeing Connor’s jaw set so tight that it looks painful–it suddenly terrifies him.

“Why didn’t I know about this?” Connor asks in a low, steely voice. He already knows the answer. He already knows why. But he wants to hear Oliver say it.

“I–I deleted the email… and I threw away the letter,” Oliver whispers. He grimaces when the other man closes his eyes. “I know–I know… it was wrong of me. I–I shouldn’t have done it… And–and I also… I called the admissions office pretending to be you… and I declined the acceptance.”

Connor drops his head into his hands. He can’t– _he can’t_ look at Oliver right now. He doesn’t know whether to scream or cry. Instead he just shakes his head. “Why would you do that?” He mumbles into his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver whispers. “I just–I didn’t want to move. I mean, it’s California, it’s literally the other side of the country. And I didn’t want to go. I’m so sorry. I’m so so–”

“Why would you do this?” Connor finally lifts his head to glare at the other man. Oliver looks… so regretful. So sorry and so pitiful. But that barely registers to him. This is Oliver, his sweet, gentle Oliver. Never in a million years, would he have thought Oliver could ever do something like this… “I can’t–I can’t believe you–you lied to me–”

“Connor–” Oliver reaches out a cautious hand–

“No, don’t!” Connor hisses as he jumps back on the couch. “Don’t touch me! Just tell me why you did it!”

“I’m so sorry,” Oliver says helplessly. All his reasons and excuses sound pathetic to his ears.

“If you didn’t want to go–if you didn’t want to move to California–this isn’t a decision that you make on your own!” Connor yells. He’s hurt. He’s hurt and so, so angry, he’s barely forming words properly. “You should have talked to me!”

“I know that. I know, Connor. But I didn’t think you’d listen! I knew how much you wanted to go–”

Connor shakes his head as he sputters helplessly. “If you knew, then why would you do this? If you knew how much I wanted this, _why_ would you do it? I…” He trails off and simply shakes his head. “I trusted you. Why, Oliver?”  

Oliver blinks in an attempt to clear the tears that had come to his eyes, and prays that he doesn’t start breaking down pathetically in tears. “I didn’t want to move. And… I was afraid you’d go without me.”

And there’s the truth. 

Connor’s eyes soften as he watches him. But the moment is brief and his eyes harden again before he speaks. “That doesn’t make what you did okay.”

“I–I know.”

“I knew something was up with you,” Connor mutters to himself as he looks away again.

“Connor–”

“I’m not an idiot,” he hisses. “You’ve been acting weird these past few weeks. You barely talk to me, sometimes you can’t even look me in the eye, you haven’t touched me in weeks–”

Oliver gapes helplessly. It turns out he wasn’t as good at hiding his guilt as he’d originally though. “I’m so sorry…”

Connor tunes out his continuous apologies. The words seem meaningless to him now. Everything he thought he knew about Oliver had changed with his confession. “You were the _one person_ that I trusted not to lie to me… You were the _one person_ that I had by my side…”

“I know,” Oliver murmurs softly. “But it’s… it’s not that big of a deal if you think about it.” He fights against his instinct to scoot closer to the other man as he tries to rationalize it to them both. “I mean, we weren’t dead set on going, not yet anyway. What’s so bad about staying in Philly? You’ve already completed a year at Middleton! And maybe, maybe in the end, I would have convinced you to stay–”

“But you didn’t!” Connor says angrily. “You _didn’t_ convince me to stay, you took that choice away from me!” 

It suddenly gets very difficult for Oliver to maintain eye contact, and his gaze drops to his lap shamefully. In truth, he already knows all of this. These very thoughts had been plaguing him ever since he deleted that email. And now that the truth is out, he’s got nothing to say.

“Do you get that?” Connor finally asks softly.

Oliver nods silently. A tear trickles down his cheek, and he closes his eyes painfully.

“Why did you even bother telling me?” Connor croaks. His voice cracks, and his breath hitches. He’s close to tears himself.

“What?” Oliver whispers.

“Why did you bother telling me? It’s been weeks. By now, even if I called them saying I want to attend, they’ve already given my position away to someone else. So why bother telling me? It’s not like I can do anything about it.”

“Because… because I feel bad–”

“Because you feel _guilty,_ ” Connor hisses.

Oliver lets out the breath in his lungs. _Yeah._  The weight on his shoulders and the ache in his chest is gone. A brief and fleeting relief now that his horrible secret is out in the open. But it’s quickly been replaced with fear. Fear that chokes him and makes it harder to breathe. Because what if Connor can’t forgive what he’s done? What if Connor doesn’t ever look at him the same way again? Would it have been better if he’d kept the secret to himself? A hopeless thought, as he knows he’d never have been able to live with it.

Connor shakes his head as he watches the other man’s inner monologue. “Well, good for you,” he scoffs. “Good for you for coming clean. I hope it makes you feel better. But we are not okay.”

“Connor…”

“I trusted you.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“You went behind my back. You _lied_ to me… You should have just talked to me!”

“We’re not exactly great at talking, Connor.” Oliver finally says.

Connor stares at him silently. As angry and hurt as he is, he can’t deny the truth to Oliver’s words. He’s as guilty as Oliver is in that regard, if not more so. He looks away and wordlessly swallows the lump in his throat.

“Every problem we’ve ever had gets brushed under the rug,” Oliver says softly, when it’s clear Connor won’t respond. “Or solved by taking our clothes off. And I’m sorry for what I did. I really am. I’m sorry that I lied, that I hurt you. And I wish I hadn’t done it. But… this _problem_ that we have, where we suck at communicating with each other, that’s not all on me.”

“Fine. You’re right,” Connor says firmly. “We have our issues. That doesn’t change what you did. You crossed a line. And you don’t get to make decisions about my life for me.”

“Like you’ve been trying to do for me?” The sudden hard edge to his voice startles them both, and Connor’s head snaps up to look at him in surprise.

“What?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Oliver says, gentler this time. “You’re always trying to tell me what to do. You ask me to hack when it’s good for you, but when I actually want to do it, suddenly you want me miles from the situation. You keep saying you don’t want me working for Annalise, that you don’t want me around those people. But you’re dragging me along to sleepovers, hideouts, and bar crawls. It’s like… you never take into account what _I_ want.”

“If this is about you wanting to work for Annalise again–”

“That’s a part of it, yeah!” Oliver says, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Sometimes… it feels like you treat me like a child. Like you don’t trust me to do anything for myself.”

Connor stares at him flatly. The anger has long faded, and now he’s just trying to understand where and _how_ they’ve gone so wrong. “So… this is you trying to get back at me? By making sure I didn’t get in to Stanford?”

“No!” Oliver cries. “No! It was never malicious! I was just tired of–”

“Me not letting you make your own decisions. So instead, you made a decision for the both of us.”

“I–” Oliver breaks off and sighs. It feels like they’re going around in circles and getting nowhere. A moment passes and they simply sit in silence.

“That’s not the same and you know it,” Connor says softly. “As shitty and controlling my behavior has been… everything that I’ve done, I’ve done to keep you safe.” He looks up at the other man, his eyes hard and shining. “What you did, that was just selfish.”

Oliver can’t say anything to that. He helplessly stares at his hands in his lap. A mere few feet between them, yet it might as well be miles. He wants to reach out, but he’s got no words that can fix this. His lies and their faults, so blatantly _wrong_ and _broken,_ like a solid divide between them. He looks over at the other man. Connor’s silent. He just sits, facing straight ahead, staring blankly at the mess on the coffee table, unseeing and unfocused. Quiet. 

“This is my fault,” Connor eventually murmurs.

“What?”

Connor laughs softly, hiding his face in his hands. But it sounds wrong, hollow and wretched. “I can’t even blame you,” he whispers softly. “I did this.”

“What are you talking about?” Oliver asks. 

But Connor doesn’t hear him. He feels jittery and anxious, like he can’t sit still any longer. He jumps to his feet and Oliver’s eyes follow him nervously. He paces, arms wrapped tightly around himself as Oliver sits helplessly on the couch. How did they get to this point? There are so many problems staring him in the face, and Oliver wants to talk about it, but just the thought alone feels as bad as pulling teeth.

Their entire relationship has been built on a foundation of lies. Starting the night they killed Sam. He had always known this. And now, when he takes a step back and really, _really_ looks at them. They wobble and shake, ready to fall apart at any given moment. Maybe that moment is now. 

To an outsider they must seem normal. Perfectly happy. A perfect couple. And they’ve had their good moments. Sadly, right now he can’t think of one in which they have their clothes on. He does remember the frantic desperation to protect this man that he loves. He remembers the chilling, body numbing fear he felt when he thought Oliver’s life was in danger. All this time he’s been so desperate to protect this safe sanctuary that is their life together. But is any of it real? 

They seem like a fairytale now. Distorted and simplified. Fake. Nothing more than a nice, pretty sugarcoated facade that hides all of the bad things underneath. 

And even his wonderful, sweet Oliver has fallen under the spell. 

Little lies become big lies. One lie becomes more. And his was the one that started it all. It spreads, tainting them both, and infecting Oliver with its venom. He’s the one that ruined them, not Oliver.

“Connor… Connor?”

He finally looks up at the sound of his name, to see Oliver watching him with concern. 

“Are you okay?”

“I–I have to go,” he murmurs softly, as he makes his way to the bedroom. 

“What?!” Oliver jumps up in shock, and quickly follows after him. “Where are you going?” 

Connor doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. His actions pulling a suitcase from the closet and throwing it open on the bed says more than enough. 

“Connor please,” Oliver gasps. His voice is small and foreign sounding to his own ears. “No, please don’t go.”

“I think we need some space,” Connor whispers, avoiding his gaze, as throws random clothes into the suitcase. He’s pretty sure half of it is actually Oliver’s but he can’t seem to care at the moment. He just needs to get out, and get as far away as he can.

The sound that escapes Oliver’s throat as Connor moves around him gathering his things is a broken cry. Panic grips his chest and lodges the words in his throat. His teeth rattle as he tries to get words out before Connor gets too far in his packing. Tears are streaming down his cheeks. 

“Connor, please, don’t go. Please. Just stay, and we can talk about this. We can–we can still fix it–”

“We can’t–not now,” Connor whispers. The words are rough and painful as he says them. And he looks everywhere but at Oliver. The suitcase is full and now he throws whatever bare necessities he can remember into a book bag. His laptop, phone charger, toothbrush… His pills rattle loudly when he throws them into the bag. 

Oliver’s head spirals in a blaze of panic as he watches Connor gather things from their apartment. His hands shake as he reaches out for the other man but Connor flinches away. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, baby please… Please stay, and just talk to me. We’ll fix it…”

Oliver’s crying now, and Connor feels like his heart has been wedged painfully in his throat as he watches him. He slowly shakes his head as tears trickle down his own cheeks. He quickly wipes them away. “I’m not mad,” he whispers. “I swear, I’m not.”

“Then why are you leaving?” Oliver gasps, not even bothering to stifle his sobs.

_“Because I’m no good for you.”_

“What? What does that mean?” Oliver’s eyes widen as the other man grabs his suitcase and bag. He moves to stand between him and the exit. “Connor!” He pleads, shaking his head desperately.

“Look, I think–I think we need some time apart,” Connor murmurs, unable to meet his eye. He adjusts the strap of the bag on his shoulder. “Or–I don’t know–maybe I just need time apart. I don’t know…” He tries to walk around the other man, but Oliver continues to step in his way.

“Please don’t go…” Oliver whispers. “Connor, I love you. Please baby, I love you so much.”

Connor parts his lips like he wants to say it back. And Oliver begs, he hopes and prays, and then–“I love you too,” Connor finally whispers. “Now please get out of my way.”

Oliver closes his eyes painfully. “No–no, please Connor…”

“I’m sorry,” Connor says as he forcefully walks around him.

“No–no, Connor!” Oliver’s hands reach out to grab him, but the other man just barely slips through his fingers. “Connor!”

“Goodbye, Oliver.” He mutters as he wrenches the door open. Before Oliver can get another desperate word out, the other man is gone. The door closes behind him with a soft click.

Too soft. Especially when the emotions inside him are raging. He’s hurting. He’s angry, at himself for his mistakes, at Connor for not giving them a chance. He feels confused and helpless. He knows there’s more to the story that Connor won’t tell him. But that’s how it’s always been. And it’s not fair. Everything so quickly spiraled out of his control.

Oliver looks around the apartment. In reality, it’s not all that different. Connor didn’t take much with him. The coffee table is still covered in his papers and books. The only thing that’s missing is Connor.

**Author's Note:**

> [x](http://winters-blue-children.tumblr.com)


End file.
